The Style Maven: the runaway trainer

The main appeal, it seems, is the rubbery, rather ugly performance trainer itself, not the designer copycats Photo: LAURA CALLAGHAN

We need to talk about trainers, the trend for which is fast building up to fever pitch. Since I began writing this piece Elle has Tweeted a competition to win a £100
Adidas
pair and a fashion insider has uploaded a picture of some dove-grey
Stan Smiths
on to Instagram, turning me dove grey with envy.

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Yesterday on the train I sat next to a twentysomething who was wearing a black and pink
New Balance
pair. We got talking (Trainers on a Train?), and I asked her: why the performance-wear shoe? It is a fairly new thing, she said. She used to hate trainers. Then she went travelling, returned last May, and they suddenly looked the very thing. She has another pair in emerald green and wears them with everything - even dresses.

Well, she's in tune with Karl Lagerfeld, who in January sent the
Chanel
couture line out on to the runway accessorised with trainers. Chanel trainers, of course, but that hardly matters. Last month
Nike
, New Balance and Adidas featured on the feet of London Fashion Week attendees as much as the
Balenciaga
trainer or the
Céline
skate shoe. The main appeal, it seems, is the rubbery, rather ugly thing itself, not the designer copycats.

Wellies aside, there probably isn't a less flattering shoe than the performance trainer. It shortens the calf; it doesn't lift the bottom. But fashion is in a sporty place right now and the current trend is for wide-cut garments that look good earthed with a chunky (ugly) shoe.

Anyway, what if the purpose of this footwear isn't to flatter? What if fashion's new love of the trainer is about a spirit of adventure and activity, of stylish pragmatism and the freedom to hare around between appointments without your feet falling off? During London Fashion Week the girls in trainers cut far cooler figures than the girl teetering into a fashion show on a rainy Saturday morning in laced-up black leather 4in-heeled sandals. I don't expect everyone to agree. I just know which of them I'd probably talk to on a train.